In addition to treating developers to new betas of iOS 10, tvOS 10 and watchOS 3, the Cupertino company this morning also released a minor software update for Apple Watch owners. The watchOS 2.2.2 software update, a minor bug-fix release, is now available for download through the Watch companion app on an iPhone and includes more than a dozen bug fixes.
Messaging service Viber this morning pushed a new update to its App Store app, adding several new long overdue features. For starters, iPhone users can now back up and restore their chat history through iCloud, making keeping their conversations after an iOS restore possible.
The application now has a brand new native watchOS 2 app for your wrist with canned responses on your Apple Watch. Other new features in this edition of Viber include support for sending and receiving animated GIF images, sending money from within the app and low-rate Viber Out calling plans via a redesigned screen.
Apple on Friday issued an advisory on its portal for developers about an important upcoming requirement for watchOS apps. According to a one-sentence post, “starting June 1, 2016, all new watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be native apps built with the watchOS 2 SDK or later.”
Apple is scheduled to hold its annual pilgrimage for developers, WWDC, from June 13 through June 17, 2016, or two weeks after the requirement to develop strictly native apps kicks in.
After seeding iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 to its registered developers this morning, Apple has also released new betas for its other forthcoming operating system updates: watchOS 2.2.1 and OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan. You can download watchOS 2.2.1 beta 2 (build 13V420) and OS X 10.11.5 beta 2 (build 15F24b) through Apple's Developer Center, which requires a paid account for full access, or apply them on the devices themselves through the Software Update mechanism on devices running a beta OS.
Apple today seeded the first beta of watch OS 2.2.1 to the members of its Apple Developer Program. The pre-release software can be installed on an Apple Watch through the My Watch → General → Software Update section within the companion Watch app running on an iPhone with the new iOS 9.3.2 beta, which was also seeded to developers this morning.
The software came with a build number of 13V413 and arrived approximately two weeks following the public release of the watchOS 2.2 firmware, a minor update for the Apple Watch that brought out an improved Maps app, support for multi-watch pairing and other tidbits.
In addition to the major iOS 9.3 software update for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, a companion software update for the Apple Watch released this morning, too. The new watchOS 2.2 firmware is now available as an over-the-air download in the companion Watch app for the iPhone.
watchOS 2.2 is not as major a release as iOS 9.3 or OS X 10.11.4 so ti includes only a few improvements such as the Nearby feature in Apple's Maps app, the ability to pair multiple watches to a single iPhone and more.
Shazam has released an update on Tuesday for its iOS apps in the App Store with some notable improvements to the way the apps integrate with Spotify, one of the more popular third-party music-streaming services that can be had on the iOS platform, as well as support for watchOS 2 on the Apple Watch.
In a flurry of software updates released today, Apple hasn't forgotten about the Apple Watch. The new watchOS 2.1 software update is available for your watch, bringing out new language support and bug fixes to improve your experience.
Available through the companion Watch app on your iPhone, the 57.1-megabyte download introduces an expanded support for system languages, adds support for right-to-left user interface, Siri dictation in Arabic and more.
Along with the release of iOS 9.1 this morning, Apple just release watchOS 2.0.1 for Apple Watch users. Most notably, this update contains support for the new emoji characters already present in iOS 9.1, and improvements to battery life.
Joining a bunch of status indicator icons at the top of the Apple Watch screen is a handy new icon displayed when the device is on a known Wi-Fi network without the paired iPhone present.
Before watchOS 2, the wearable used to indicate that it's lost connection with its paired iPhone but would not distinguish whether it's remained connected to a known Wi-Fi network on its own.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of websites and apps dedicated to providing a variety of background wallpaper designs for the iPhone and iPad. Now that watchOS 2 allows us to use our own images as custom watch faces, the Apple Watch wallpaper market is sure to take off.
We found a Tumblr blog that already has nearly four-dozen specially designed wallpapers that you can use to make your Apple Watch as stylish as you want.
A new feature of watchOS 2 finally allows users to send messages completely hands free, and even though there is a catch, it's a much welcome improvement to communicate via text message without having to physically touch the device.
The catch is that this new feature only applies to messages you create from the Home or Watchface screen using Siri. It does not work for replies to messages you receive, and doesn't work if you go straight to the Messages app and tap Reply. Still, if used right, it can make the process of sending messages completely frictionless.